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gumball machines and brown-haired boys
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
In another world, Gabe and Alina would've been stepsiblings, silently suffering through the same abuse. In another world, a world where Alina had been a better daughter and Gabe had been a less brave son, they would've lived together, silent glances conveying that they knew each other's pain. In another world, one without Demogorgons and superpowers and possessed teenagers, perhaps that would've been their life.
But Linda had left. Pretended Alina didn't exist. And Gabe had run away, and had thus been disowned, but they'd still found each other. Still knocked into each other the weekend before his arrival, and still became friends. It was funny how these kinds of things worked. Funny how you were just meant to meet some people, meant to share that connection with them.
Alina and Gabe weren't stepsiblings, but they were still friends.
And they were both alive.
Alina rested her head on the pillow now, her mind awhirl. Gabe had the same stripes on his stomach that she had been self-conscious about for so long. Gabe had been ridiculed just like she had. Gabe had been through what Alina had never wished on anything else, and that was all because of Linda—Collins, Burton, Fairgrieves, whatever her last name was. One woman.
Guilt swam through her. After Linda had left, she'd thought that had been it. She'd never thought about what Linda was doing with her life, what horrors she might've been inflicting on other children. She'd just been glad that she was gone.
She'd let go of Linda when she'd burnt that letter. But she wished now she could do something. She didn't want Nicole to grow up just like she did. She didn't want Linda to hurt any more children. She wanted that woman locked up somewhere where no one could be hurt.
Or... maybe she could do something. But she couldn't do it alone. She needed help, and that help was standing by her bed, wearing a button-up shirt.
